Global Payments, TSYS tie-up would likely be highly accretive, says Stephens. Stephens analyst Brett Huff noted that Bloomberg reports that Global Payments (GPN) and TSYS (TSS) have held talks about a potential merger, joint venture and/or partnerships. While he has previously thought that Global Payments had the luxury of "waiting and seeing" if combining consumer funding account with a merchant POS experience, such as the Fiserv (FISV)-First Data (FDC) and FIS (FIS)-Worldpay (WP) deals will do, would yield enough strategic value, he suspects a sooner deal might be driven by the companies' desire to not just achieve larger scale but also achieve that scale with high-quality assets. Huff said he thinks any deal would likely be highly accretive given overlaps and both companies' track record for realizing cost synergies and he also sees limited antitrust concern. Huff also thinks a Global Payments-TSYS combination would increase the chances that assets such as ACI Worldwide (ACIW), Bottomline Technologies (EPAY), Jack Henry (JKHY), USA Technologies (USAT) and Q2 Holdings (QTWO) would likely be bought.

Global Payments (GPN) and Total System Services (TSS) have held preliminary talks about a potential merger deal and have also discussed possible joint ventures and other ways to partner up that may not include a merger, according to Bloomberg's Nabila Ahmed, Matthew Monks and Ed Hammond, citing sources. Global Payments and TSYS have been seen as potential takeover targets or merger partners after FIS (FIS) and Worldpay (WP) announced a definitive merger agreement in March, two months after Fiserv (FISV) agreed to buy First Data (FDC), last night's report noted. In pre-market trading, Global Payments shares are up 1% and TSYS shares are up 6%. Reference Link

John Paulson's Paulson & Co. disclosed in an SEC filing its holdings as of March 31, 2019. Paulson's 15 new buys during the quarter included, by size of position, Celgene (CELG), WellCare (WCG), Centene (CNC), First Data (FDC), and QEP Resources (QEP). Paulson exited 17 positions during the quarter, including by size of previous position, Brookdale (BKD), Nielsen (NLSN), Office Depot (ODP), and Akorn (AKRX). Paulson increased its stake in five holdings, including by size of previous position, BrightSphere (BSIG), Red Hat (RHT), Sprint (S), and On Semiconductor (ON). Paulson reduced its stake in five holdings, including by size of previous position, NXP Semi (NXPI), Travelport (TVPT), Discovery (DISCK), and Horizon Therapeutics (HZNP). Paulson's top holdings as of March 31, in order of size, were SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), Bausch Health (BHC), Mylan (MYL), Celgene, and Discovery.

Fiserv (FISV) told Bloomberg in an email that it does not expect anything related to First Data's (FDC) joint venture with Bank of America (BAC) to impact the terms of its pending buyout. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Bank of America is considering ending its payment processing joint venture with First Data. Fiserv told Bloomberg that it did due diligence on First Data's client contracts and that it remains comfortable with the business in a variety of outcomes.

Bank of America (BAC) is considering ending its payment-processing joint venture with First Data (FDC), instead developing its own business to move money between consumers and merchants, The Wall Street Journal's AnnaMaria Andriotis and Rachel Lousie Ensign report, citing people familiar with the matter. A final decision on the partnership, which expires in June 2020, hasn't been made, the people say. Reference Link

Fiserv named a new 'Fresh Pick' at Baird. Baird analyst David Koning assigned a "Fresh Pick" designation to Fiserv (FISV) after First Data's (FDC) Global Business Solutions, or GBS, segment accelerated to +10% organic growth, which Koning noted was the best growth of the merchant acquirers in Q1. The analyst, who thinks results from both Fiserv and First Data "deserved a better reaction," also noted that Fiserv has underperformed the S&P since the end of January and thinks relief rallies may be coming. Koning has an Outperform rating and $106 price target on Fiserv shares.

Facebook (FB) has talked to financial institutions including Visa (V), Mastercard (MA) and First Data (FDC) seeking total investments of roughly $1B as well as e-commerce companies and apps about accepting a digital coin as it looks to build a cryptocurrency-based payments system, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter. The focus of the effort, which had been ongoing for over a year and code-named Project Libra, is a digital coin that Facebook users can send to each other and use to make purchases on Facebook and the internet. Reference Link